Confronting the deafening silence on race in geography education in England: learning from anti-racist, decolonial and Black geographies

Abstract

School geography in England has been largely silent on issues around race, which stands in contrast to important strands of thought in the discipline. In this intervention, we explore two influential approaches in education – cultural literacy and powerful knowledge – to argue that we urgently need to address the silence on race by making substantive anti-racist changes in the curriculum. Within cultural literacy, we argue that anti-racist geographies provide powerful frameworks to address white supremacy and institutionalised racisms. Working within powerful knowledge, Black and decolonial geographies bring attention to knowledge creation and the great potential that exists to learn from anti-racist conversations and internal debates within academic geography. Our argument is for a more holistic and sustained anti- racist school geography education that empowers young people to understand the complex and shifting politics of space, place and knowledge and contribute to meaningful anti-racist futures.

Notes

1. These shifts in curricula should occur within and alongside anti-racist praxis and pedagogies for a holistic approach (see, Rose, 1990; Peake and Kobayashi, 2002; and hooks, 2003; for further discussion of pedagogy, see Murrey, 2020).

2. The cultural foundations for this thinking are embedded within British society. The Equality Legislation in the UK provides the framework for the Public Sector Equality Duty, which is the only legally binding imperative for measures of diversity in HE. Yet, the legislation prohibits affirmative action and preserves ‘neutral’ and ‘raceless’ imaginaries, focusing on protecting ‘everyone’ from discrimination, rather than drawing attention to racism as material and structural.

3. Myers’ (2001) analysis of geography textbook representations of Africa reveals the frequencies of geographical ignorance through racial and racist tropes of Africa in HE, thus, the production of ignorance is not absent from HE.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steve Puttick

Steve Puttick is Associate Professor of Teacher Education in the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK (email: [email protected]). Twitter: @Steve_Puttick

Amber Murrey

Amber Murrey is Associate Professor of Human Geography, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, UK (email: [email protected]). Twitter: @AmberMurrey